Do you think Sophie is justified still being so upset?
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: It turned out I had sprained my ankle. Some people sprained their ankles doing things like gymnastics, or doing acrobatics. I did it walking down some steps that I’ve walked down plenty of times before. I had stayed home through the next two days, my mom encouraging me to take a break. She was convinced I had misstepped because I was stressed from school or tired. And she wasn’t totally wrong about the latter. It was now Wednesday afternoon. I had been able to take short naps throughout these past few days and I knew I was catching up on sleep. But I still had the worst time trying to sleep through the night the last two nights. I repeated the drowning nightmare, and when I finally managed to fall asleep again, I had a similar dream of falling to my death from a tall building. Both nights. Awful. It was mid-afternoon and I was responding to one of Ally’s texts. She had been trying to keep me updated on all things Pacific in my absence. It was actually pretty
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: I dreamt about a wolf, a big gray wolf, who was running at top speed through a forest. It was weaving skillfully around trees and rocks, and over a stream. It reached another stream and dipped its head to take a drink. When it looked up I saw its eyes, they were black with moving swirls of gold in them. It probably should have looked frightening but for some reason its eyes just drew me in further. I felt at ease and wanted to reach out and run my fingers through its fur. It turned and looked right at me and we stared at each other for a moment before we heard a howl far away and it took off running once more. It was the first break in endless nightmares I’d had in a few nights, and the full amount of sleep I got this time made me feel better about my decision to go back to school today. Moving around on crutches took practice and I was still terrible at it. Taking a shower was a whole ordeal too, so I had needed to wake up even earlier than normal to give mysel
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: The rest of my morning went by pretty uneventfully. Well, other than me taking much longer to move around with these crutches. Sean walked with me nearly everywhere though, so I was not lacking company. I swear, he nearly picked me up a few times. It took a lot of convincing for him to tone down his worry. It was lunch now and I was sitting out with Marsha, Ally, and Maxine, they were catching me up on things I had missed. I had caught up with Kyle earlier at break and he had filled me in on some funny things in his unusual way of storytelling. He was still keeping Vance at bay and I was so grateful. Thankfully I hadn’t missed the big fall event, Food Fest, which was tomorrow. We had shorter class times and a few events throughout our breaks that I was looking forward to. All the clubs in Pacific would have booths and would be raising money for their clubs and the school in general. Sean came back to the bench and sat on the floor by my leg. “What are you d
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: I had probably tested my luck that night when I had opened the window. I had just needed to be closer to her, could almost feel her amplifying my power, and I got away from myself. Thankfully she hadn’t seen me. If I weren’t paying as much attention she would have caught me, a hovering bird in a dark cloud of magic slowly opening her window. I didn’t know how long I could last like this. There was no way I would be able to share her with anyone else. She needed to be mine. Just mine. I will watch over her again tonight. The nightmares began again. This time it was a mix between things. I was walking through a forest, following a large wolf walking ahead of me. It was leading me to a figure, a woman, far off into a field. But before we could get close enough for me to make out anything else I was covered by birds, dark birds. They started coming toward me a few at a time, then more arrived. And the wolf continued on without waiting for me. I tried to call out an
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: The next day after school Sean helped me out to his car again. I kept asking him what exactly he had planned and he of course wouldn’t tell me. I asked again anyway. “Your questioning hasn’t gotten me to budge all day and it’s not going to start now,” he teased me. He booped my nose. “Did you just boop me?” I asked, crossing my arms. “Maybe, but if I did you had it coming,” he laughed and buckled in his seatbelt. He drove us to the highway but this time we went south. “Are we going to a beach?” I asked, he shook his head. “Are we… going to a restaurant?” I asked. He just laughed and replied, “That’s it, I’m saying ‘no’ to everything you guess. I’m not letting you ruin your surprise.” “Alright, alright,” I said, hands up in defeat. “Be like that.” He continued to drive down the highway and turned up his music, skipping a few songs until he got to one he knew I couldn’t help but sing to and I side-eyed him for it. But after a few bars I sang alo
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE: Friday night was consumed with nightmares and at 4am I decided to give up trying to sleep. I leaned over to my nightstand and pulled out a book and a reading light. Might as well take this time to get something useful done rather than scroll away on I*******m again. It had been a bit but I was finally reading to finish the last book in this fantasy romance series I loved. I hadn’t wanted the story to end so I had put off reading the last book. I loved the romance between the two main characters, a bad-guy fae who turned out to be the good guy all along, and a human girl who finds herself thrown into a world of magic. I just loved their relationship, and the whole concept of soulmates. It was just so comforting and I found myself wishing for my own dark prince charming to conquer the world with and battle evil. But this was just a story. The sun had just started to rise when my phone buzzed. I couldn’t look away from my book for a minute, so caught up in the sto
CHAPTER FORTY: Things calmed a bit over the weekend after my huge talk with Jake. I was more at peace than I had been in some time. His apology would never undo anything, but it was really good to hear it. For him to acknowledge what had happened and how he hadn’t responded in any sort of good way. I would have been able to accept rejection if he had just talked to me, but the silence was uncalled for. We were friends, if anything, when I had confessed my feelings for him in a moment of bravery. I hadn’t deserved that response, and my heart relaxed a little knowing that he knew that. We had continued texting now and then over the weekend, but kept things much more light hearted. He filled me in on some shenanigans, and I mentioned some progress with my ankle. I was going to try to do without my crutches today. Jake thought as long as I wasn’t pushing myself, I would know my body’s progress more than anyone. Sean of course was paranoid that I was pushing myself, and so I lied and told
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE: The school day began just like others had. Sean arrived early and babyed me and my foot. I pretended to have forgotten my crutches on the bus and he nearly started calling the bus charter company to have them come back. I told him it was alright and I’d ask a friend to hold them for me. He grumbled for a few seconds then let it go. I was managing just fine walking here and there, and with being able to sit through classes for long periods of time, I was confident I wouldn’t overdo it. Ally, Simon, Sean and I were in the library before class and I was doing some homework ahead of time. It was nice to have this extra time to cut down on the workload I did at home. God, I really loved this school. The bell rang and Sean accompanied us to Humanities, insisting he wasn’t coming along because of my ankle, and was just wanting to spend a little more time with me. We got to the class early, Ms. Del Rios hadn’t opened the door yet, but more classmates were gathering. S